Hania. Генрик Сенкевич
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in the garden. She consented willingly and ran to her chamber; she returned soon with a large straw hat on her head, which shaded her forehead and eyes, and with a parasol in her hand. She smiled at me roguishly from under the hat, as if to say, "See how this becomes me."
We went to the garden together. I turned toward the hornbeam picket, and on the road thought, how shall I begin conversation, and thought also that Hania, who certainly could begin better than I, had no wish to assist me, but rather amused herself with my perplexity. I walked along at her side in silence, cutting off with my whip flowers growing on the side of the path, till Hania laughed all on a sudden.
"Pan Henryk," said she, catching at the whip, "what have the flowers done to you?"
"Hania, what are the flowers to me? But thou seest that I do not know how to begin talk with thee; thou hast changed much, Hania. Ah, how thou hast changed!"
"Let us suppose that to be true. Does it make you angry?"
"I do not say that it does," answered I, half in sorrow; "but I cannot make myself used to it, for it seems to me that that other little Hania whom I knew before, and thou, are two different beings. That one had grown into my memory, into – my heart, like a sister, Hania, and therefore – "
"And therefore" (here she pointed to herself) "this one is a stranger, is she not?" asked she, in a low voice.
"Hania! Hania! how canst thou even imagine such a thing?"
"Still it is very natural, though perhaps sad," answered she. "You are looking in your heart for the old brotherly feelings, and do not find them, that is all."
"No, I do not look in my heart for the old Hania, for she is there always; but I look for her in thee, and as to my heart – "
"As to your heart," interrupted she, joyously, "I can guess what has become of it. It has stayed somewhere in Warsaw with some other little heart. That is guessed easily!"
I looked deeply into her eyes. I did not know whether she was quizzing me a little or counting on the impression made on me yesterday, and which I was unable to hide, but she was playing with me somewhat cruelly. All at once a wish to resist was roused in me. I thought that I must have a supremely comical face, looking at her with the expression of a mortally wounded deer; so I mastered my feelings and said, —
"If that is true?"
A visible expression of astonishment, and, as it were, of dissatisfaction, came to her face.
"If that is true," answered she, "it is you who have changed, not I."
She frowned a little, and, looking at me from under her forehead, went on some time in silence. I endeavored to hide the glad emotion with which her words penetrated me. "She says," thought I, "that if I love another, it is I who have changed; therefore it is not she who has changed, she – " And from delight I dared not finish this wise inference.
Notwithstanding all this, it was not I, not I, but she who had changed. That little maiden who six months before knew nothing of God's world, to whose mind it had never occurred to mention feelings, and for whom such a conversation would have been as Chinese, carried it on to-day as freely and accurately as if she had been reciting a lesson. How had that child mind developed and become so flexible? But wonderful things take place in girls. More than one falls asleep in the evening a child and wakes up in the morning a woman, with another world of feelings and thoughts. For Hania, with a nature quick, capable, sensitive, the passage of her sixteenth year, another sphere of society, learning, books, read, perhaps, in secret, – all this was more than sufficient.
Meanwhile we walked on side by side in silence which Hania was the first to break.
"Then you are in love, Pan Henryk?"
"Perhaps," answered I, with a smile.
"Then you will be sighing for Warsaw?"
"No, Hania; I should be glad were I never to leave here."
Hania glanced at me quickly. Evidently she wished to say something, but was silent. After a while, however, she struck her skirts lightly with the parasol, and said, as if answering her own thoughts, —
"Ah, what a child I am!"
"Why dost thou say that, Hania?"
"Oh, so – Let us sit on this bench and talk of something else. Is not the view from here beautiful?" asked she, with that well-known smile on her lips.
She seated herself on the bench not far from the paling under an immense linden-tree. From that point the view was very beautiful indeed in the direction of the pond, the dam, and the forest beyond the pond. Hania pointed it out to me with her parasol; but I, though a lover of beautiful views, had not the least desire to look at it, – first, because I knew it perfectly; second, I had before me Hania, a hundred times more beautiful than anything which surrounded her; finally, I was thinking of something else.
"How clearly those trees are reflected in the water!" said she.
"I see that thou art an artist," I answered, not looking at the trees or the water.
"Father Ludvik is teaching me to sketch. Oh, I have learned much while you were gone. I wanted – but what is the matter? Are you angry with me?"
"No, Hania, I am not angry, for I could not be angry with thee; but I see that thou avoidest my questions, and this is the trouble, we are both playing at hide and seek, instead of speaking sincerely and with confidence, as in old times. Maybe thou dost not feel this, but for me it is disagreeable."
These simple words had this effect only, that they brought us into great perplexity. Hania gave me both hands, it is true; I pressed those hands perhaps too vigorously, and, oh, terror! I bent over them quickly and kissed them not at all as befitted a guardian. Then we were confused to the utmost. She blushed to the neck, I also; and finally we were silent, not knowing in any way how to begin that conversation which should be sincere and full of confidence.
Then she looked at me, I at her, and again we hung out red flags on our faces. We sat side by side like two dolls; it seemed to me that I was listening to the hurried beating of my own heart. Our position was unendurable. At times I felt that some hand was seizing me by the collar to throw me at her feet, and another was holding me by the hair and would not let me do so. All at once Hania sprang up and said in a hurried, confused voice, —
"I must go. I have a lesson at this hour with Pani d'Yves. It is nearly eleven."
We returned by the same road to the house, and went on as before in silence. I, as before, kept cutting the heads off the flowers with my whip, but this time she had no compassion for the flowers.
"Our former relations have returned beautifully; there is nothing to be said on that point. Jesus, Mary! what is taking place within me?" thought I, when Hania left me to myself. I was in love so that the hair was rising on my head.
Just then the priest came and took me to look at the management. On the way he told me many things touching our estate; these did not occupy me in the least, though I pretended to listen attentively.
My brother Kazio, who, enjoying his vacation, spent the whole day out of doors, in the stables, in the forest, at shooting, on horseback, or in a boat, was at that particular moment in the farm-yard riding a young horse from the stud. When he saw me and the priest, he galloped up to us on the chestnut, which reared as if mad, and asked us to admire the horse's form, fire, and pace; then he dismounted and went with us. Together we visited the stables, the cow-houses, the barns, and were just going to the fields, when it was announced that my father had come, so we had to go home.
My father greeted me more warmly than ever. When he learned of the examinations, he took me in his arms and declared that thenceforward he would consider me full grown. Indeed, a great change had taken place in him with reference to me. He treated me with more confidence and affection. He began to talk with me at once about property interests; he confided to me his intention of buying one of the neighboring estates, and asked my opinion. I divined that he spoke of that purposely to show me how seriously he looked on my significance as a mature person and the first son in the family. At the same time I noticed how genuinely he was pleased with me and my advance in study. His pride of a parent was flattered immensely